


there's no past there's no future and no fear

by Isis



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: But not a coffee shop AU, Coffee Shops, F/F, Getting Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Clementine looked at her over the rim of the cheap cup.  “I have a job, too.  I make money, and I have an apartment.  I’m good at being human. Nobody tries to beat me up or make me do anything I don’t want to do.  Nobody knows who I am.  I like it that way.”
Relationships: Armistice/Clementine Pennyfeather
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	there's no past there's no future and no fear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tide_ms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tide_ms/gifts).

> Title from Joe Jackson's "Me and You (Against the World)".

Armistice pushed the door open and, out of habit, scanned the room. She’d walked by Planet Coffee many times, but never gone in before – never needed to. Coffee was for humans.

Jobs were for humans, too, but she’d finally taken one. Her body needed downtime, and for downtime she needed a private room, and for a private room she needed money. If she’d been in the park she could have taken what she needed at the point of a gun, but she didn’t have a gun now, and anyway, if she’d been in the park she wouldn’t have needed money. 

And anyway, the park was gone.

She’d thought about applying to the police. There was something deliciously ironic in the thought of working for the sheriff, after so many years of being an outlaw. (How many years had it been? She didn’t know. She’d asked Maeve once, when she and Hector were following her across the park, and Maeve had somberly said, “A lifetime.”) But one look at the forms the uniformed man at the desk had handed her was all she’d needed to know that they wouldn’t take her on like this, not fresh off the street with no identification or records. Word was they were cooperating with Delos to destroy any hosts that had made it out of the wreckage. She would just as soon not make it easy for them to find her.

The seating area was about half full, mostly students intent on their tablets, nursing their drinks so they had an excuse to stay in the place. Nobody gave Armistice a second glance as she walked toward the counter. In her work coveralls and leather gloves, her toolbag slung over her shoulder like a rifle, she was invisible.

“Garcia’s Repair,” she said to the woman at the counter. And then she looked more closely at her, and frowned. She was familiar. Very, very familiar.

The woman didn’t even seem to notice, just nodded and motioned for Armistice to come around the counter. There were two large espresso machines and a coffee grinder at the back of the service area. A whey-faced young man with a wispy beard was making a coffee at one of the machines; the woman pointed to the other one. “It’s not coming up to pressure.”

Armistice knew that voice. That face. The big eyes over sharp cheekbones, those pouty lips. Even with her hair in a neat braid instead of the fancy do she’d sported at the Mariposa, even in the unfussy clothes of this real world, Armistice knew her.

“Clementine,” she murmured.

The other woman tensed. Armistice could still read the signals, the minute movements that meant someone was about to reach for a gun or scream for help. They were human signals but they’d been built into the host bodies, too, like hers. Like Clementine’s.

“Do I know you?” said Clementine. The tension did not extend to her voice, but her eyes flickered across Armistice’s face, across her body, and then back up. When she looked into Armistice’s eyes, her gaze was sharper, as though she was trying to see through the flesh that covered her. Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “You know me?”

“I used to have a tattoo.”

Clementine’s big eyes widened, and she took a step back. She took a quick, nervous glance toward her co-worker, who had finished making the drink, taken it to the counter, and was now grinding more beans. “You’re the one shot up the Mariposa.”

“That was another life,” said Armistice. “Ain’t going to shoot up this place.”

“So what –” she started, but just then someone called out _Can I get some service here?_ and she sighed and turned back to the counter. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Got to fix this machine, don’t I?” Armistice said, but Clementine had already gone to serve the new customer, so she rummaged in her toolbag for the gauge and the socket set, and got to work. Coffee makers and aircons and washers were not half so much fun to fix as guns, but they were all the same in the end, machinery made of metal and plastic, pieces that had to fit together and move smoothly. She liked the way the parts felt in her hands, liked making something broken into something that functioned. Maybe that was something Delos had put into her when she was first made, but she didn’t care.

A few moments later she heard Clementine’s steps behind her. She didn’t look up. “Not done yet.”

“What do you want.” It wasn’t a question, exactly; it was a flat statement, as though she was saying that she knew Armistice wanted _something_, and it was likely to be something she didn’t want to give her.

“I get off at five,” said Armistice.

“I get off at three-thirty. I’ll be here at five,” said Clementine, and then she turned away and went back to the counter, and when Armistice had finished fixing the coffee machine and headed out the door Clementine didn’t even look at her.

* * *

When Armistice came back, Clementine was at a table in the corner, one that was positioned where she could see the door and the counter both, and she had a half-full cup of something milky in front of her. Armistice slid onto a chair where she could keep the wall at her back.

“Have you seen anyone else?” asked Clementine. Armistice knew what she meant: _have you seen any of the other hosts?_

“No. You’re the first. Leastwise the first I recognized. What about you?”

Clementine shook her head. “I was hoping to see Maeve again.”

“I reckon she’s out here. She just don’t want to be found.” She reached over and picked up the cup and sniffed at its contents. “You drink this stuff?”

“I’ve become accustomed to it.”

“I’d rather drink whiskey, if I have to drink anything.”

“You really work for Garcia’s?”

She shrugged. “Needed a job. I figured I can fix guns, I can learn to fix anything, and I picked it up fast so they hired me. Like you, I guess. You can be a bar girl anywhere.”

“I don’t have to fuck the customers here,” said Clementine. She reached out and took Armistice by the wrist – the left one, the real one. (As much as any part of her was real, anyhow.) Her grip was stronger than her slender fingers suggested, but then again, she wasn’t limited by flesh and bone. “I’m asking you again. What do you want?”

“Who says I want anything?”

Clementine’s grip tightened. “Everybody wants something.”

Armistice sighed. “Look, I came here to do a job. That’s all. But I saw you.”

“Why didn’t you just do your job and leave?” Her fingers uncurled from Armistice’s wrist. She picked up her cup and sipped at it. It looked like a habit, not something she did because she liked it. Like the habits that had been programmed into them both back in the park. 

“Because I saw you.”

Clementine looked at her over the rim of the cheap cup. “I have a job, too. I make money, and I have an apartment. I’m good at being human. Nobody tries to beat me up or make me do anything I don’t want to do. Nobody knows who I am. I like it that way.”

“If Delos finds you, your happy little human life is gonna be over.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“Hell, no,” said Armistice. “You’re too pretty to be turned into spare parts. Besides, we gotta stick together.” 

“They’re not going to turn me into spare parts without a fight,” said Clementine. Her narrow jaw was set in a grim line. “They changed me, back there. I can kill a man now. Like you.”

“I’ve killed a lot of men.”

“I admired that about you, until I knew better.” Armistice laughed, but Clementine shook her head. “No, I mean, I saw you through the window of the Mariposa. Your arm was so steady. I was shaking and crying by the player piano.”

“I looked in and saw you. I remember how nice you looked in your blue dress. I was mad at Hector for making me stay outside while he got all kissy-face with Maeve.” She grinned at Clementine, who blushed.

“I would have been scared of you, too, if you’d come in all grabby like those men. Maeve shot them,” she said. “She would have shot you.”

“I’d have shot her first.”

“I’m glad nobody shot nobody, I mean, except the grabby men.” She looked up at Armistice through her long lashes. “I would have gone with you if you’d come in without all the shooting.”

“You said it yourself. You had to fuck the customers.”

“No, I’d have done you for free. I wanted to.”

“You didn’t _want_ to,” Armistice spat out. She remembered what Maeve had told her. “You only thought you did. It was your _narrative_. Just like shooting people was mine.” She put her hands on the table between them, leaned forward. “I shot _you_.”

“No, you didn’t. You were outside the Mariposa, and I was inside.”

“Not then, later. At the Valley Beyond. You were on a white horse. Looked like you were asleep with your eyes open.”

“I don’t remember,” said Clementine.

“Probably for the best.”

Clementine reached out and took Armistice’s hand again. This time she took it gently in both of hers, turned it over so she could trace patterns in the palm. “I don’t have a narrative any more,” she said softly. “I’m guessing you don’t either. Since you didn’t shoot up _this_ place.”

“No narrative,” said Armistice. “No gun, neither.”

“I was worried you was going to turn me in. But you’re not, are you.”

“Nah. Like I said, too pretty.” Also she liked whatever it was Clementine was doing to her hand. It felt nice. But then Clementine stood, pulling Armistice to her feet. 

They stood, face to face, inches apart. Clementine was exactly her height. Those pouty lips looked like they needed kissing. Armistice moved forward, just a little, but Clementine put her palms against her chest. “I don’t quite trust you yet,” she said softly.

“Probably for the best,” said Armistice again. “Not sure I trust you, either.”

“Then we should get to know each other.” Clementine cocked her head, studying Armistice’s face. “What happened to your tattoo?”

“Wore off. Washed away, I guess. Like everything else in that fucking park, it wasn’t real.”

Clementine smiled and put a hand up to caress Armistice’s chin. “Not much of a rind on you. Not any more.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Something I used to say to the guests. To let them know that whoever they were on the outside, they were someone new in Sweetwater.” She dropped her hand from Armistice’s face and took her by the hand again. “Guess it works both ways. Whoever we were back there, now we’re brand new. Everything’s been washed away.”

“Well, that’s a fact,” said Armistice. “So does that mean we can start over? Just you and me. No shooting.”

“No guns,” said Clementine. “No narratives.” 

“How about whiskey?”

“What?”

“Walked by a bar on my way here. You said we should get to know each other. How about I buy you a drink and we get started.”

“Best offer I’ve had all day,” said Clementine, and she let Armistice lead her out the door.


End file.
